People in rural areas eat more rice whereas urbaners drink more milk (5.11 liters per month). This is one of the findings of the latest report no. 509 of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) who made a new survey across 7999 villages and 4602 urban blocks covering 79298 rural and 45346 urban households, respectively, to highlight consumption patterns.
Another figure, the intake of both rice and wheat at urban centres, has declined in the 2004-05 period compared to the earlier peroid during 1993-94. The fall of rice consumption was deeper than in wheat. As per the NSSO data, the monthly per capita consumption of rice by the urban people stood at 4.71 kg in 2004-05 while for wheat it was 4.36 kg.

Another interesting figure is the consumption of oils. The per capita consumption of edible oil has risen over the eleven years following 1993-94 by as much as 30% in rural India and about 18% in urban India. In both rural and urban India, per capita consumption of oil other than groundnut oil, mustard oil, vanaspati and coconut oil has more than doubled. Such oil would include sunflower oil, soyabean oil, other vegetable oil and rice bran oil.

The rising oil demand has led to huge imports of oil. According to the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India, the import of vegetable oils (edible and non-edible) for the month of March 2007 alone was 317,930 tons.